Transcript Slide 1

The Civil Rights Movement
Harlem Renaissance
Segregation
School Desegregation
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Sit-Ins
Freedom Riders
Desegregating Southern Universities
The March on Washington
Voter Registration
The End of the Movement
Segregation
The civil rights movement was a political,
legal, and social struggle to gain full
citizenship rights for African Americans.
The civil rights movement was first and
foremost a challenge to segregation, the
system of laws and customs separating
African Americans and whites.
During the movement, individuals and civil
rights organizations challenged segregation
and discrimination with a variety of activities,
including protest marches, boycotts, and
refusal to abide by segregation laws.
Segregation
Segregation was an attempt by
many white Southerners to separate
the races in every aspect of daily life.
Segregation was often called the Jim
Crow system, after a minstrel show
character from the 1830s who was
an African American slave who
embodied negative stereotypes of
African Americans.
Segregation
African Americans had
separate schools,
transportation,
restaurants, and parks,
many of which were
poorly funded and inferior
to those of whites.
Over the next 75 years,
Jim Crow signs to
separate the races went
up in every possible
place.
Negro going in colored entrance of movie house on
Saturday afternoon, Belzoni, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
FSA/OWI Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LCUSF34-9058-C]
Segregation
The system of segregation also included
the denial of voting rights, known as
disenfranchisement.
Between 1890 and 1910, all Southern
states passed laws imposing requirements
for voting. These were used to prevent
African Americans from voting, in spite of
the Fifteenth Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, which
had been designed to protect African
American voting rights.
Segregation
The voting requirements included the
ability to read and write, which
disqualified many African Americans who
had not had access to education; property
ownership, which excluded most African
Americans, and paying a poll tax, which
prevented most Southern African
Americans from voting because they could
not afford it.
Segregation
Perhaps the most difficult part of Northern
life was the economic discrimination
against African Americans. They had to
compete with large numbers of recent
European immigrants for job
opportunities, and they almost always lost
because of their race.
Segregation
In order to protest segregation, African
Americans created national
organizations.
The National Afro-American League
was formed in 1890; W.E.B. Du Bois
helped create the Niagara Movement in
1905 and the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) in 1909.
Segregation
The NAACP became
one of the most
important African
American
organizations of the
twentieth century. It
relied mainly on
legal strategies that
challenged
segregation and
discrimination in the
courts.
20th Annual session of the N.A.A.C.P., 6-26-29, Cleveland, Ohio
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.; LCUSZ62-111535
Segregation
Historian and
sociologist W.E.B. Du
Bois was a founder
and leader of the
NAACP. Starting in
1910, he made
powerful arguments
protesting segregation
as editor of the NAACP
magazine The Crisis.
[Portrait of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois]
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van
Vechten Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ6254231]
School Desegregation
The main focus of the NAACP turned to
equal educational opportunities.
Marshall and the Defense Fund worked
with Southern plaintiffs to challenge the
Plessy decision, arguing that separate was
inherently unequal.
The Supreme Court of the United States
heard arguments on five cases that
challenged elementary and secondary
school segregation.
School Desegregation
In May 1954, the Court
issued its landmark ruling
in Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka,
stating racially segregated
education was
unconstitutional and
overturning the Plessy
decision.
White Southerners were
shocked by the Brown
decision.
Desegregate the schools! Vote Socialist Workers :
Peter Camejo for president, Willie Mae Reid for vicepresident.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C.; LC-USZ62-101452
School Desegregation
As desegregation continued, the membership
of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) grew.
The KKK used violence or threats against
anyone who was suspected of favoring
desegregation or African American civil
rights.
Ku Klux Klan terror, including intimidation
and murder, was widespread in the South
during the 1950s and 1960s, though Klan
activities were not always reported in the
media.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Despite threats and violence, the civil
rights movement quickly moved
beyond school desegregation to
challenge segregation in other areas.
In December 1955, Rosa Parks, a
member of the Montgomery, Alabama,
branch of the NAACP, was told to give
up her seat on a city bus to a white
person.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
When Parks refused
to move, she was
arrested.
The local NAACP, led
by Edgar D. Nixon,
recognized that the
arrest of Parks
might rally local
African Americans to
protest segregated
buses.
Woman fingerprinted. Mrs. Rosa Parks, Negro seamstress,
whose refusal to move to the back of a bus touched off the bus
boycott in Montgomery, Ala.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C.; LC-USZ62-109643
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
The boycott lasted for more than a
year, expressing to the nation the
determination of African Americans in
the South to end segregation.
In November 1956, a federal court
ordered Montgomery’s buses
desegregated and the boycott ended in
victory.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
A Baptist minister named Martin Luther
King, Jr., was president of the
Montgomery Improvement Association,
the organization that directed the boycott.
His involvement in the protest made him a
national figure. Through his eloquent
appeals to Christian brotherhood and
American idealism he attracted people
both inside and outside the South.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
King became the president of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC) when it was founded in 1957.
The SCLC complemented the NAACP’s
legal strategy by encouraging the use of
nonviolent protest. These activities
included marches, demonstrations, and
boycotts.
The harsh white response to African
Americans’ direct action eventually forced
the federal government to confront the
issue of racism in the South.
Sit-Ins
On February 1, 1960,
four African
American college
students from North
Carolina A&T
University began
protesting racial
segregation in
restaurants by sitting
at “White Only” lunch
counters and waiting
to be served.
Sit-ins in a Nashville store
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Division Washington, D.C.; LC-USZ62-126236
Sit-Ins
Baker believed that SNCC
civil rights activities should
be based in individual
African American
communities.
SNCC adopted Baker’s
approach and focused on
making changes in local
communities, rather than
striving for national
change.
[Ella Baker, head-and-shoulders
portrait, facing slightly left]
Library of Congress Prints and
Photographs Division Washington,
D.C.; LC-USZ62-110575
Freedom Riders
After the sit-in movement, some SNCC
members participated in the 1961
Freedom Rides organized by CORE.
The Freedom Riders, both African
American and white, traveled around the
South in buses to test the effectiveness of
a 1960 U.S. Supreme Court decision
declaring segregation illegal in bus
stations open to interstate travel.
Desegregating Southern Universities
In 1962, James Meredith—an African
American—applied for admission to the
University of Mississippi.
The university attempted to block
Meredith’s admission, and he filed suit.
After working through the state courts,
Meredith was successful when a federal
court ordered the university to
desegregate and accept Meredith as a
student.
Desegregating Southern Universities
In 1963, the governor of Alabama, George C.
Wallace, threatened a similar stand, trying to
block the desegregation of the University of
Alabama. The Kennedy administration
responded with the full power of the federal
government, including the U.S. Army.
The confrontations with Barnett and Wallace
pushed President Kennedy into a full
commitment to end segregation.
In June 1963, Kennedy proposed civil rights
legislation.
The March on Washington
National civil rights leaders decided to
keep pressure on both the Kennedy
administration and Congress to pass the
civil rights legislation. The leaders planned
a March on Washington to take place in
August 1963.
This idea was a revival of A. Phillip
Randolph’s planned 1941 march, which
had resulted in a commitment to fair
employment during World War II.
The March on Washington
Randolph was
present at the
march in 1963,
along with the
leaders of the
NAACP, CORE,
SCLC, the Urban
League, and SNCC.
Roy Wilkins with a few of the 250,000 participants on the Mall
heading for the Lincoln Memorial in the NAACP march on
Washington on August 28, 1963]
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C.; LC-USZ62-77160
The March on Washington
Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered a moving address
to an audience of more than 200,000 people.
His “I Have a Dream” speech—delivered in front of
the giant statue of Abraham Lincoln—became
famous for the way in which it expressed the ideals
of the civil rights movement.
After President Kennedy was assassinated in
November 1963, the new president, Lyndon
Johnson, strongly urged the passage of the civil
rights legislation as a tribute to Kennedy’s memory.
The March on Washington
Over fierce opposition from Southern
legislators, Johnson pushed the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 through Congress.
It prohibited segregation in public
accommodations and discrimination
in education and employment. It also
gave the executive branch of
government the power to enforce the
act’s provisions.
Voter Registration
Starting in 1961,
SNCC and CORE
organized voter
registration
campaigns in the
predominantly
African American
counties of
Mississippi,
Alabama, and
Georgia.
[NAACP photograph showing people waiting in
line for voter registration, at Antioch Baptist
Church]
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Division Washington, D.C.; LC-USZ62-122260
Voter Registration
SNCC concentrated on voter registration
because leaders believed that voting was
a way to empower African Americans so
that they could change racist policies in
the South.
SNCC members worked to teach African
Americans necessary skills, such as
reading, writing, and the correct answers
to the voter registration application.
Voter Registration
These activities caused violent reactions
from Mississippi’s white supremacists.
In June 1963, Medgar Evers, the NAACP
Mississippi field secretary, was shot and
killed in front of his home.
In 1964, SNCC workers organized the
Mississippi Summer Project to register
African Americans to vote in the state,
wanting to focus national attention on the
state’s racism.
Voter Registration
SNCC recruited Northern college students,
teachers, artists, and clergy to work on
the project. They believed the
participation of these people would make
the country concerned about
discrimination and violence in Mississippi.
The project did receive national attention,
especially after three participants—two of
whom were white—disappeared in June
and were later found murdered and buried
near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Voter Registration
By the end of the summer, the project had
helped thousands of African Americans
attempt to register, and about one thousand
actually became registered voters.
In early 1965, SCLC members employed a
direct-action technique in a voting-rights
protest initiated by SNCC in Selma, Alabama.
When protests at the local courthouse were
unsuccessful, protesters began to march to
Montgomery, the state capital.
Voter Registration
As marchers were leaving
Selma, mounted police
beat and tear-gassed
them.
Televised scenes of the
violence, called Bloody
Sunday, shocked many
Americans, and the
resulting outrage led to a
commitment to continue
the Selma March.
A small band of Negro teenagers march singing and
clapping their hands for a short distance, Selma,
Alabama.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Washington, D.C.; LC-USZ62-127739
Voter Registration
King and SCLC members led hundreds of
people on a five-day, fifty-mile march to
Montgomery.
The Selma March drummed up broad
national support for a law to protect
Southern African Americans’ right to vote.
President Johnson persuaded Congress to
pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which
suspended the use of literacy and other
voter qualification tests in voter
registration.
Voter Registration
Over the next three years, almost one
million more African Americans in the
South registered to vote.
By 1968, African American voters had
having a significant impact on Southern
politics.
During the 1970s, African Americans were
seeking and winning public offices in
majority African American electoral
districts.
The End of the Movement
For many people the civil rights movement
ended with the death of Martin Luther
King, Jr. in 1968.
Others believe it was over after the Selma
March, because there have not been any
significant changes since then.
Still others argue the movement continues
today because the goal of full equality has
not yet been achieved.